"In Italy and in Europe le people want an end to these massacres, this violence, this butchery. People think what we can do to bring peace ". "We must use every channel for peace, for a ceasefire and the start of credible negotiations ”. "What is happening in Ukraine has brought about a drastic change in the European Union, we were close and now we are even closer and I know that we can count on your support as a sincere friend of the EU and Italy.". So the Prime Minister Mario Draghi at the White House talking to Biden.
(by Massimiliano D'Elia) A war that is continuing beyond any clearest forecast, the conflict has reached a stable situation on the ground where there are no substantial changes in the face on both sides. A real quagmire that risks directly and indirectly involving all the Great Ones of the Earth. And here is that Europe, through Mario Draghi, asks the US to take the path of peace by returning to diplomatic dialogue. The remote meeting between the leaders of China, France and Germany will dispel any doubts about initiatives in this direction. At the same moment in which Draghi was weaving the new web of peace with Biden, France and Germany were talking with China, the actor who perhaps more than anyone is today able to defuse Putin by allowing him a exit strategy dignified. Xi Jinping realized that continuing to sympathize with Putin's policy, given the results on the ground and the renewed unity of the EU, NATO, US and UK, can in the long run harm China's business. The isolation of a single country or a small block of emerging countries, with respect to a world which, like it or not, is globalized and dependent on the free market is not productive at all.
The telephone conversations that President Xi Jinping had over the last two days, first with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, then with the French President Emmanuel Macron, may be the sign of a new posture towards the conflict, the duration of which is going beyond all expectations ". The contents of the double interview made public by Beijing did not go unnoticed among the foreign diplomatic community in the Chinese capital. The fact that between the two phone calls Scholz and Macron also met in person in Berlin did not go unnoticed. Xi called for an autonomous strategy of the European Union and for an EU security that is "in the hands of the Europeans". With Scholz, the Chinese president recalled the importance of "do our best to prevent the conflict from escalating and expanding, leading to an unmanageable situation". While with Macron he agreed that "all stakeholders should support Russia and Ukraine to restore peace through negotiations", Recognizing - according to the Elysée -"respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty"Of Kiev.
In other words, “it is as if the Chinese president were urging European leaders to take the initiative towards Russia by seeking a negotiating window with Vladimir Putin and showing him a way out, rather than continuing with the all-out armed support of the Ukraine wanted by the US and Great Britain ", a European diplomatic source commented with ANSA, according to which China"could never follow a possible American proposal, which is hardly conceivable by the state ".
According to another source, Xi's move, who has never condemned the aggression or called the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky so far, would aim to avoid repercussions on the very strength of Russia and the leadership, given the difficulties encountered by the Russian Army. of Putin who, on the Red Square on 9 May for Victory Day, had harsh Cold War words against the United States but not towards Europe.
For China, the détente serves to ease the pressures on the troubled domestic economy due to the Lockdowns due to Covid.
Macron is the European leader who has heard the most from the head of the Kremlin even after the attack on Ukraine and on Monday he recalled that "we must not give in to the temptation of revenge. Tomorrow we will have a peace to build "and" we will have to do it with Ukraine and Russia around the table. But this will not be done with mutual exclusion, nor with humiliation ".
Biden's requests to Italy
Biden nevertheless drafted the requests to Mario Draghi to be brought within the EU. And in this sense we must read the need to tighten sanctions and the Italian green light to the oil embargo, on which Brussels is still struggling to close an agreement. Both leaders acknowledge that Putin has failed in trying to divide them. The premier guarantees to the ally a new tranche of economic aid to Kiev and a greater commitment of the armed forces in defense of the eastern flank: the Italian mission in the NATO sphere, as announced by Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini in Parliament, will be extended to short also to Bulgaria and Hungary to "strengthen the posture of deterrence and reassurance". On weapons, on which the stomach ache of the majority that supports the government in Rome is multiplying, Italy is preparing to evaluate a third decree to send heavier items. Among other things, there was talk of the M109 self-propelled artillery. It is not excluded that there are also Lince light armored vehicles. Another common front, on which Rome is asking for Washington's support, is that of energy supplies. The US signed an agreement at the end of March to increase LNG supplies to Europe by 15 billion cubic meters. A share will go to Italy, which in the meantime is implementing regasification capacity, with a ship that should be operational as early as the beginning of 2023 and a second floating regasifier to be activated by the end of next year. In this context, in the medium term, the States will be able to play (the message that comes from Draghi) a "fundamental" role, because the supplies to the stars and stripes at the moment stop at 10% but the government has every intention of increase them to reach full independence from Russian gas by 2024. But on the front of the economic impact of the war, in addition to the galloping inflation that creates problems in both countries, there is another aspect on which Draghi continues to focus attention, convinced that it should be put at the center and not at the margins. on the international agenda, and it is that of food security. In the poorest countries, and in particular those bordering the Mediterranean, the conflict risks triggering a real food crisis, given that a large part of the supplies of wheat and corn depend on Russia and Ukraine.